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The Water Horse drawing mixed reviews

My kids have been watching the commercials for The Water Horse for weeks (months?) now, and begging to go see it. But I have a rule about what movies we choose to see—I never pick something based on the commercials alone.

(Sometimes a really lousy movie has a really great commercial, you know.)

Anyway, I generally wait for the movie to come out and the reviews to come around, and then I make a decision. It saves us the annoyance of trooping all the way to the cinema and paying too much money for something we would’ve changed the channel on, at home.

So The Water Horse opened on Christmas Day and I checked it out over at Rotten Tomatoes with much trepidation. How was it?

Well, the good news is that the last time I checked, the Tomatometer stood at a very respectable 71% favorable. The more interesting news is that reviewers seemed to love it or hate it—there was very little in-between.

So you have the props like this:

The best kiddie picture of the season — and, along with Ratatouille, of the year.Ella Taylor, L.A. WEEKLY

And pans like this:

Nessie lays an egg literally and figuratively in this inoffensive, visually attractive but highly derivative family movie about a boy and his beastie.Frank Swietek, ONE GUY’S OPINION

I liked Christy Lemire’s review the best, and she—like many others—draws a comparison to E.T., which seems apt. She also points out parts of the movie that very small children may find too scary, which I always find useful to know before deciding whether or not to let my kids see something.

Overall, I’m left with the impression that this will be a fun movie. And if it’s not, I guess Frank Swietek can tell me that he told me so.